Malleable Minds: Guiding the Development of Talent Among the Gifted

This program was orignially webcast live on March 20, 2013, and is now available on-demand.

By bringing together psychologists studying beliefs about ability, neuroscientists investigating brain plasticity, selective attention, executive functioning, and memory, and educators committed to developing high potential, we can identify connections, directions, and common ground. Drawing on emerging lines of research, translations to gifted education, and engaging cases of classrooms and schools, an interactive panel of experts explores answers and questions about the development of talents.

Learning Objective 1Recognize the ways in which emerging research in cognitive and social psychology and neuroscience are influencing thinking about the constructs of gifts and talents

Learning Objective 2Explain the ways in which ability and talent can be developed by environmental and educational variables

Learning Objectvie 3Comprehend the implications of emerging understanding of the influences of environment and education on the development of talents for interventions that will maximize that development

Carol S. Dweck, PhD, is one of the world’s leading researchers in the field of student motivation and is the Lewis and Virginia Eaton Professor of Psychology at Stanford. Her research highlights the critical role of mindsets in students’ achievement, and shows how praise for intelligence or talent can undermine motivation and learning. In addition to the APA Distinguished Scientific Achievement Award and the Klingenstein Award for Leadership in Education, she has been recognized by the Ann Brown Award in developmental psychology, the Donald Campbell Award in social psychology, and the E.L. Thorndike Career Achievement Award in educational psychology. She has been elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and as a Herbert Simon Fellow of the American Academy of Political and Social Science. Her work has been prominently featured in the media and her recent book Mindset has been translated into 17 languages.

Dr. Rena Subotnik

Rena F. Subotnik, PhD is Director of the Center for Gifted Education Policy at APA. Prior to her work at APA she was a professor of education at Hunter College and coordinated the secondary education program at Hunter College laboratory schools. She is co-editor of Methodologies for Conducting Research on Giftedness (with B. Thompson), Developing Giftedness and Talent Across the Life Span (with F.D. Horowitz and D. Matthews), The International Handbook of Research on Giftedness and Talent (2nd Ed.) (with F. Monks K. Heller, R.J. Sternberg), Remarkable Women: Perspectives on Female Talent Development (with K. Arnold and K. Noble), Beyond Terman: Contemporary Longitudinal Studies of Giftedness and Talent (with K. Arnold). Recently she co-authored "Rethinking Giftedness and Gifted Education: A Proposed Direction Forward Based on Psychological Science" ((with Paula Olszewski-Kubilius and Frank Worrell in Psychological Science in the Public Interest. Dr. Subotnik was 2002 NAGC Distinguished Scholar and 2009 AERA Fellow.

Dr. Frank Worrell

Frank C. Worrell directs the School Psychology program at the University of California, Berkeley, and he also serves as Faculty Director of the Academic Talent Development Program, and Faculty Director for the California College Preparatory Academy (CAL Prep). In his research, he examines psychosocial variables that are related to academic achievement and promote resilience, especially in adolescent, African American, Caribbean, and gifted and talented populations. He also studies the psychometric properties of scores on instruments used to measure psychosocial constructs. Dr. Worrell has served on the Committee for Psychological Tests and Assessment of the American Psychological Association, and is a member of APA’s Board of Educational Affairs, and the Joint Committee revising the Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing. He is a Fellow in Division 16 of APA and an elected member of the Society for the Study of School Psychology. Author of over 70 articles, he serves on several editorial boards, and has ongoing research collaborations in Chile, Germany, Peru, and Trinidad and Tobago.